28 August 2026

Left--right symmetric theories with generalized parity restrict the bare QCD angle to a CP-conserving value and relate the physical strong-CP phase \(\barθ\) to a CP-odd parity-breaking parameter \(\eps\). We show that, in the Dirac-neutrino realization, imposing a sectorial reality condition on the Dirac lepton Yukawa matrices turns observable leptonic CP violation from an independent input into a branch-dependent prediction. Parity reconstructs the right-handed leptonic mixing matrix, whereas leptonic reality requires it to be rephasing-equivalent to the complex conjugate of the left-handed one. For generic three-generation Yukawas, compatibility is equivalent to the vanishing of a single Jarlskog-type CP-odd invariant. In the physical Dirac hierarchy, for fixed oscillation data, mass ordering, and discrete leptonic branch, compatibility determines the PMNS Jarlskog invariant as a function of the lightest neutrino mass and \(\eps\). We derive its leading analytic behavior and obtain the nonlinear compatibility branches numerically. In compressed mixed-sign Dirac-neutrino spectra, small signed mass sums can amplify a tiny parity deformation into order-one values of the normalized PMNS Jarlskog invariant, including maximal CP violation. The corresponding quark reconstruction independently provides a calculable, branch-dependent conversion between \(\eps\) and \(\barθ\). Together, the leptonic and quark relations define a family of correlations among leptonic CP violation, the absolute neutrino mass scale, and strong CP.

We study collective slow flavor conversion (SFC) of supernova neutrinos with multi-energy, multi-angle simulations for three representative neutrino spectra in the early accretion, late accretion, and cooling phases, in which multiple crossings between the initial electron- and heavy-lepton-flavor spectra are present. By numerically solving the neutrino quantum kinetic equations in a local periodic box, we find that SFC triggered predominantly by the spatially inhomogeneous instabilities drives the system toward a spatially coarse-grained, quasi-stationary state, whose flavor conversion probability depends strongly on energy, angle, and the neutrino mass ordering. While we find that not all of the initial spectral crossings are completely erased in the final state, a simple, box-like analytical prescription inspired by studies of fast flavor conversions, which eliminates the spectral crossings, can reasonably approximate the post-SFC spectra. Using the initial and post-SFC spectra, we also evaluate the changes of the corresponding $ν_e$ and $\barν_e$ heating rates as well as the absorption equilibrium electron fraction ($Y_e$). Within the considered scenarios, we find that the heating rates are generally enhanced by up to $\sim 80\%$ due to the net conversion of $ν_x$ to $ν_e$ (and $\barν_x$ to $\barν_e$) above their crossing energy, provided that the energy spectra above the crossing energy differ substantially. For the absorption equilibrium $Y_e$, spectra changes due to SFC increase it by $\sim 0.03$ due to the relatively more enhanced $ν_e$ absorption rate than $\barν_e$, which potentially drives supernova materials to be more proton-rich. These results highlight the importance of energy-dependent treatments of SFC for supernova neutrinos.

We propose an anomaly-free and renormalizable axial $U_A(1)_{L_μ-L_τ}$ model and study its experimental signatures for $A'$ masses from the MeV scale to the TeV scale. The opposite charges of the left- and right-handed charged leptons forbid the usual muon and tau Yukawa interactions. Their masses are instead generated by a singlet scalar and heavy vector-like leptons through a universal-seesaw mechanism. We focus on heavy vector-like leptons, small light--heavy mixing, and $m_s\gtrsim10~\mathrm{GeV}$. In this limit, the observables considered here depend mainly on $(m_{A'},g_X)$, while the other model parameters are restricted by mixing and perturbativity. We confront this benchmark with current experimental searches. For neutrino trident production, our finite-$m_μ$ calculation shows that $A'$ modifies the axial weak coefficient, rather than the vector coefficient relevant to the usual $L_μ-L_τ$ model. The longitudinal mode enhances muon bremsstrahlung and gives a negative contribution to $(g-2)_μ$; the latter dominates over the scalar contribution in our benchmark. Combining these results with invisible meson decays and four-muon resonance searches, we summarize the phenomenological constraints in the $(m_{A'},g_X)$ plane. For $m_{A'}\gg m_μ$, vector and axial final-state-radiation rates become nearly identical, so the corresponding collider limits can be obtained by rate matching. At a future muon collider, the total rate alone does not fully resolve the interaction structure, whereas angular distributions, especially the forward--backward asymmetry in $μ^+μ^-\toτ^+τ^-$, retain direct sensitivity to chirality.

We investigate a $\mathbb{Z}_3$-symmetric extension of the Standard Model consisting of a right-handed neutrino ($N_R$), a dark fermion ($χ$) that dominates the relic density and a dark complex scalar ($S$) that facilitates a strong first-order electroweak phase transition (SFOEWPT). The observed relic abundance, is achieved through the combined effects of annihilation, semi-annihilation, and dark-sector conversion processes over a broad region of parameter space consistent with a SFOEWPT. We further investigate the resulting multi-messenger signatures, including loop-induced direct detection, indirect detection through gamma-ray observations, and gravitational wave signals, with the latter lying within the projected sensitivities of future space-based detectors such as LISA, BBO, and DECIGO.

In this note, we describe the Gepner construction purely as orbifold (rather than a beta-prescription or orbifold-like process). This is done by distinguishing orbifolding by a chiral symmetry from that by a left-right diagonal symmetry, and also by exploiting an extra degree of freedom available in orbifolds of Type 0 SCFTs. We also describe by using the Arf theory how the extra freedom in Type 0 SCFT orbifolds in general (not just in the Gepner construction) should be implemented in higher genus amplitudes. This note also determines when a combinatorial data set of a Gepner construction has a mirror Gepner construction, and also provides two thinking frameworks to determine the SCFT vertex operators of the Gepner model SCFTs with phase ambiguity and branch cuts under control.

We present FlaSR, a Mathematica package for the automatic generation of higher-order amplitude and amplitude-squared $SU(2)$ flavor sum rules, with a particular emphasis on $U$-spin. The package is based on recent insights into the mathematical structure of flavor sum rules. Given a system of symmetry-related processes defined by a list of particle multiplets in the initial and final states, together with the transformation properties of the symmetry-limit Hamiltonian, the package generates the full list of processes and outputs amplitude and amplitude-squared sum rules for the system. For amplitude sum rules, the package generates the complete set at all orders in symmetry breaking for which such relations exist. For amplitude-squared sum rules, which translate directly into sum rules among physical observables, the current version of the package is not guaranteed to generate the complete set. We illustrate the scope of the package with a range of representative examples.

For fixed $k\ge2$, Garvan's modified $k$-rank moments are encoded by odd elliptic Taylor coefficients of an odd-level Appell function. The completed coefficient of order $2n+1$ has weight $2n+3/2$, so the family cannot be realized as a fixed-weight vector-valued modular form. Nevertheless, all non-holomorphic parts arise from scalar contractions of canonical higher Serre derivatives of a single weight-$3/2$ vector-valued harmonic Maass form. Among lifts with the prescribed unary-theta shadow, the first $d=k-1$ Appell corrections are coordinates on the weakly holomorphic ambiguity and select a unique lift; the next correction is nonzero. The initial Taylor data recover the principal part without using positive Fourier coefficients of the modified moment series, and the principal part determines the shadow. The positive coefficients of the corresponding Maass--Poincaré lift have convergent Rademacher expansions; the canonical lift differs from it by a unique cusp form. This yields exact recursions for all even modified moments. For $k=2$, the cusp-form adjustment vanishes, giving an exact formula for the numbers of $2$-marked Durfee symbols involving a convergent Kloosterman--Bessel series.

The flavor structure of the Standard Model (SM) remains one of the most compelling questions in particle physics, with the third generation being particularly intriguing due to its significantly larger masses and comparatively less precisely measured properties. These features make third-generation flavor transitions particularly interesting in context of search for physics beyond the SM. In this work, we investigate flavor-violating transitions between the third and the first two generations, mediated by the neutral gauge bosons ($Z/γ$), within the framework of the SM Effective Field Theory (SMEFT), using dipole and Higgs-current operators. We determine the optimal sensitivities using the optimal observable technique (OOT) at different center-of-mass energies of the upcoming Future Circular Collider in the $e^+e^-$ mode (FCC-ee). We further derive complementary constraints on the relevant SMEFT operators from low-energy flavor-violating observables and heavy fermion decay channels. Our analysis also reveals characteristic interference patterns among the dipole contributions, which depend on the underlying flavor transition and exhibit distinct behavior between the $Z$ pole and higher-energy FCC-ee stages. The FCC-ee provides a complementary and direct probe of flavor-violating interactions at the electroweak scale, with the projections showing improved sensitivity for several interactions and comparable sensitivity to existing flavor constraints for several others. This highlights the importance of a systematic assessment across the different FCC-ee energy stages, which provides a comprehensive picture of its potential to explore flavor-violating phenomena and its complementarity with low-energy flavor experiments.

IceCube has recently detected a diffuse population of high-energy neutrinos arising from the Milky Way. We use this high-significance detection to place new limits on dark matter (DM) annihilation to neutrinos with two complementary approaches. The first method uses the background-subtracted Galactic longitude distribution of shower events to place a conservative bound on the DM annihilation cross section that does not rely on any assumed Galactic cosmic ray emission model; the resulting limits on the velocity-averaged annihilation cross section improve upon existing bounds by factors of a few. The second method uses the template-dependent neutrino energy spectra from the Inner Galaxy, inferred under different Galactic cosmic ray emission models. This complementary approach shows that the inferred Galactic neutrino intensities are already sensitive to DM contributions near the thermal-relic benchmark for a range of TeV-scale DM masses, though this comparison is more model-dependent. Our results demonstrate that measurements of diffuse Galactic neutrino emission can be used as a powerful probe of DM annihilation into neutrinos. Future observations with IceCube-Gen2 and KM3NeT will substantially extend this sensitivity, potentially allowing a decisive test of the thermal freeze-out mechanism with Galactic neutrino observations.

We present ANRe-M1 (Accelerated Numerical Relativity code with multi-energy M1 neutrino transport), a performance-portable, GPU-accelerated code for multidimensional core-collapse supernova simulations in full general relativity. ANRe-M1 builds on our original CPU-based Fortran framework and is implemented in C++ using Kokkos. It retains the underlying general-relativistic neutrino-radiation-hydrodynamics algorithms while redesigning the data layout, parallel decomposition, and memory-access patterns for accelerator-resident execution. The spacetime sector employs the BSSN--Z4c formulation and is coupled to relativistic hydrodynamics and energy-dependent M1 neutrino transport. We validate the implementation through a suite of hydrodynamic, radiation-transport, and dynamical-spacetime tests, together with comparisons to results from an earlier code-comparison study. We further demonstrate its applicability with a representative three-dimensional stellar-collapse computation including multi-energy neutrino transport. For the benchmark and computing systems considered here, ANRe-M1 runs approximately an order of magnitude faster on a cluster of AMD MI300A accelerated processing units than the Fortran version on a CPU cluster. When the allocation is increased from 2 to 128 MI300A APUs, the aggregate throughput rises by a factor of 39.7, corresponding to a weak-scaling efficiency of 62 per cent relative to the two-APU case. These results establish ANRe-M1 as an efficient and portable framework for long-term, multidimensional supernova simulations on current and forthcoming accelerator-based supercomputers.

Optical photon simulation is among the most computationally demanding tasks in complex and large detector geometries. In the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), the scale of the far-detector modules makes photon-by-photon transport with \texttt{GEANT4} prohibitively expensive on CPUs. We present the first implementation and performance evaluation of GPU-accelerated optical photon simulation at the 10~kt scale, based on \texttt{Opticks} and applied to the DUNE far-detector horizontal-drift (FD-HD) geometry. On the full FD-HD geometry, \texttt{Opticks} propagates the same photons as \texttt{GEANT4} with a speedup of $313 \pm 3$ over single-threaded and $83 \pm 1$ over four-thread \texttt{GEANT4}, and is validated against the reference \texttt{GEANT4} simulation across all metrics considered. We further integrate \texttt{Opticks} into the \texttt{LArSoft}-based DUNE software stack. Photons simulated on the GPU with \texttt{GEANT4}-equivalent physics retain full Monte Carlo fidelity at a computational cost that makes high-statistics optical studies and the generation of labeled datasets for machine learning feasible at the kiloton scale.

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) have long been considered candidate sources of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) due to their large energy release and relativistic outflows. The detection of multi-TeV $γ$-rays from GRB~221009A and its rarity have renewed interest in this connection and motivate considering an additional narrow-jet long GRB population in the local Universe. We investigate whether such a local narrow-jet population can contribute to the observed diffuse UHECR energy spectrum. We also examine the associated cosmogenic neutrino and cascade $γ$-ray emissions to assess the multimessenger viability of this scenario. We fit the observed UHECR spectrum and mass composition data using three source-evolution models: a uniform comoving source emissivity, a standard-jet GRB population tracing the star formation rate (SFR), and a standard + narrow-jet GRB population tracing SFR. We propagate a mixed-composition UHECR injection and calculate the cosmogenic neutrino and cascade $γ$-ray fluxes. The standard + narrow jet model fits the observed UHECR spectrum and composition, with the highest-energy flux dominated by the narrow-jet population confined to $z\le z_{\max,*}\simeq0.36$. This low-redshift dominance lowers the cosmogenic neutrino flux compared to the standard-jet GRB population. For the narrow-jet GRB population, the fit implies a baryon loading factor $ξ_{\rm CR}^{\rm nj}\simeq10$. Such a locally enhanced long-GRB population can therefore explain the highest-energy UHECR flux without violating current multimessenger constraints. Future UHE searches can further probe this scenario through the associated cosmogenic fluxes.

We investigate potential sources of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) and their acceleration mechanisms, focusing on astrophysical phenomena associated with massive stellar deaths and supermassive black holes. These phenomena include gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), engine-driven supernovae/hypernovae, magnetars, newly born pulsars, binary neutron star mergers (BNS), tidal disruption events (TDEs), and active galactic nuclei (AGN). While high-luminosity GRBs (HL GRBs) are constrained as UHECR sources by high-energy neutrino observations, low-luminosity GRBs (LL GRBs) and engine-driven supernovae remain promising candidates, with intermediate-mass nuclei as the dominant components. Compact binary mergers and $r$-process nucleosynthesis in neutron-rich environments may also contribute to ultraheavy UHECRs. The composition of UHECRs from TDEs depends on the properties of the disrupted stars. AGN, particularly radio galaxies, remain promising sources, with acceleration occurring in their large-scale jets and lobes. Shear acceleration mechanisms have been proposed as a viable alternative for accelerating UHECRs, involving the re-acceleration of low-energy cosmic rays and being compatible with the observed spectrum and composition. Future multi-messenger observations, especially from upcoming observatories, are expected to provide critical data to refine our understanding of UHECR origins, test existing models, and explore new acceleration mechanisms.

We present a first application of sparse-autoencoder-based mechanistic interpretability to particle physics. Studying a neutrino foundation model pretrained on IceCube data and fine-tuned for direction reconstruction, we identify a validated atlas of physical concepts in the model representation, using a strict validation protocol consisting of held-out tests, matched nuisance controls, and replication across independent dictionary trainings. Causal interventions show that the direction head barely draws on this atlas. Motivated by this underused information, we train an uncertainty head on the same event-level representation to predict the model's angular reconstruction error. Unlike the direction head, it depends causally on quality and brightness features from the atlas. At $20\%$ selection efficiency, this interpretable estimator improves the median angular resolution from $20.2^\circ$ to $3.2^\circ$. These results suggest that mechanistic interpretability can reveal learned latent physics encoded within a model's internal representation and help design downstream tasks that exploit it.

The ${\cal M}$-theory dual of thermal QCD-like theories constructed in arXiv:1306.4339, 2004.07259 involves, as shown in arXiv:2211.13186, a closed $G_2$-structure seven-fold $\mathcal{M}_7$ supporting Contact 3-Structures (C3S) that induce a ``transverse'' $SU(3)$-structure. We prove that this induced structure belongs to the symplectic nearly half-flat (S(nearly)HF) class: $dω_Φ=0$ exactly, while $dΩ_+$ is suppressed as $\mathcal{O}(e^{-N^{1/3}/\mathcal{O}(1)})$ in the infrared "MQGP limit", leaving $W_Φ^{SU(3)}=W_2^-$ as the sole non-vanishing Chiossi--Salamon torsion class and completing the $G$-structure classification of the MQGP dual initiated in arXiv:1507.02692,2004.07259, 2211.13186. As a physical application, Kaluza--Klein reduction of the eleven-dimensional Hodge dual of the differential of the $G_2$-structure positive three-form on $\mathcal{M}_7$, organised through the $G_2$/S(nearly)HF torsion data, yields a radial ``magnetic field'' $\mathcal{B}_{\rm KK}(r)$ whose squared norm factorises exactly into external and internal factors. $\mathcal{B}_{\rm KK}(r)$ satisfies a Bessel-type ODE with a regular singular point at the horizon; normalisability and infrared regularity select $J_2$, with harmonicity of the aforementioned internal factor recovered from the large-$N$ suppression. $\mathcal{B}_{\rm KK}$ is related to the magnetic field of the type~IIA flavour $D6$-branes via a non-linear power law, furnishing a top-down holographic mechanism for generating weak magnetic fields in finite-temperature string theory.